


cool hot sweet love

by seraffs



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, i butcher the a3 canon because i am that kind of person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23987332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraffs/pseuds/seraffs
Summary: the various years in kamikizaka reni's life.
Relationships: Kamikizaka Reni/Tachibana Yukio
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	cool hot sweet love

**Author's Note:**

> title is a red velvet song because that's what i've been listening to while writing this. i cannot believe i crunched this in under like three hours.
> 
> not beta'd nor edited so mistakes will be abound. probably also not canon compliant because it's been ages since i read the first act and i only skimmed through reni's letters in act 3 so a lot of this is what I Think Should(ve) happened and what I Think Was Interesting. i hope u guys enjoy! because i had fun writing this.

Reni is pushing forty-six when he first meets that guy’s daughter and it is his worst nightmare come true. It is the middle of the day in Veludo Way when he spots a mediocre street act that all but spits at the essence of theater. He is just about to turn away from the patheticdesperatetragic _ pitiful _ act when he sees her and he all but trips over on his own feet.

He’s not stupid. He knows that guy had his own family, had a wife he cherished, had a daughter he doted on like any other good father out there but he didn’t want to know any of it at all. He didn’t bother to remember his wife’s name, didn’t bother keeping up with how his family grew up. He’s not obsessive (although isn’t that the most peculiar lie? Isn’t it the reason he was able to recognize the daughter of the man he once almost called his was because of his obsessive desire to memorize every inch that man offered him?)

Reni stares at the almost mirror image of Tachibana Yukio. His traitorous heart hurts and he all but admonishes himself because it’s been years and years and years and how is he not still over this yet? 

_ It’s not even him _ . Reni thinks because the longer he watches the act, the longer he watches his doppleganger, he sees the subtle differences. Her hair is longer, her “acting” not as refined as her father and the way she holds herself is far too different from the effortless confidence that guy had. 

But the eyes.

She inherited the same marigold eyes he had. She does not know it but her existence and appearance in Veludo Way uproots years of memories Reni had tried forgetting.

* * *

Kamikizaka Reni is fifteen years old and he already has his entire life planned out ahead of him. He is to attend this highschool, score the highest possible grades he can get, graduate after three years and then attend the best university Japan has to offer. After that he will become a salaryman and spend the rest of his days working and working and working. If he’s lucky, maybe he’ll even meet a nice sensible girl and settle down. They’ll have one kid and his kid will continue the cycle of study, work, family and then die. It is something Kamikizaka Reni is beginning to loathe.

Lucky for him (and unlucky for his family) fifteen is also the age at which he meets Tachibana Yukio.

He is all bright and easy smiles, absolutely carefree in the world moving with a plan that Reni can’t figure out. He doesn’t even know if there is a plan or if all of this is madness that looks organized and this is the boy that Reni has to spend the next three years with. He already knows that he hates Tachibana Yukio. That boy is the antithesis to his entire being, they are polar opposites and they hate each other.

Or that’s what should've happened.

Instead Tachibana Yukio is easy to talk to and far easier to like. He is absolutely honest and steadfast to a fault. He does his best at school but this is not where his true passions lie in. He loves stories, whether it be written or told. There is no time where Reni doesn’t see Yukio listening to other people’s stories or launching into a grand tale of heroics or first love.

Another thing he likes, and Reni knows this not because he is keeping track of Yukio because he  _ definitely is not _ , are flowers. The flowers he brings to replenish the vase they have by the window are bountiful and bright. Yukio is absolutely ecstatic whenever he sees flowers sprouting in their school garden and Reni cannot count how many times they’ve been late to P.E. because Yukio always stops to smell the flowers.

The next time Reni is in charge of flower duty, he brings a purple lilac. Yukio beams at him all bright and easy smiles.

* * *

“ _ Reni, _ ” Yukio all but whines, “Come on…!”

Kamikizaka Reni is seventeen years old and he is in a library with Tachibana Yukio. The other boy sighs into his book of flowers and Reni does his best to avoid him. It is lunch time and instead of going to the cafeteria to eat, Reni is here in the library diligently studying while Yukio is here being… Yukio.

“We could’ve gone to the club.” Yukio complains his head resting sideways on the book. He’s not even trying to hide the boredom he feels at this moment. His hair is far too long for school regulations and Reni isn’t even sure how he manages to avoid the class representative getting on his case. “Finals aren't even until next month!”

“You know the deal with my parents.” Reni gently admonishes him. There is an urge to run his fingers in Yukio’s hair in an effort to placate him but Reni ignores the urge, filing that particular new emotion to be examined at a later date. “If I don’t get good grades I quit doing theater.”

“Yeah well, school is for dummies.” Yukio replies. Reni can’t quite see his face but he knows a frown when he hears one. “Besides, it’s your  _ last year _ .”

Ah.

That.

The thing that they have been avoiding talking about since the beginning of the year. After high school Reni is to be a productive member of society, severing all ties to the theater that he has come to love, severing all ties he has to the boy he owes everything to.

“It is.” Reni echoes, not knowing how to reply.

Yukio sits up and looks at Reni with his marigold eyes. The only ones in this secluded area of the library are the two of them. Reni hears the deepening beats of his heart and it is far too loud.

“I’m going to miss you.” Yukio tells him seriously. “I wish we could do this forever.”

_ I wish it too. _

“It’s not like I’m gonna disappear or anything when I quit.” Reni laughs and gives in to his urge. He pats Yukio’s hair once before retreating lest he becomes too greedy. “We’ll still be friends when I go to college and you go… do whatever it is theater freaks like you do.”

Yukio frowns at him and slightly looks away in faux anger. “If  _ I’m _ a theater freak I wonder what that makes you!”

Yukio rolls his eyes at him and goes back to his book of flowers while Reni laughs and goes back to studying. A moment of silence befalls them and the only sound you can hear is the flipping of paper or the occasional frustrated groan from Reni.

Soon, the bell rings and the two of them go back to class. 

“You know,” Yukio says as they walk. “I was in charge of flower duty today.”

“Is that so?” Reni asks, indulging him. “What flower did you bring today?”

“An Alstroemeria.” Yukio replies, “They’re these pretty white-pink-yellow flowers that look like lilies. They’re not though. Do you know what they mean in flower language?”

Reni saw those flowers that morning. They stood up tall and proud against the sun, almost glittering.

“What do they mean?”

Yukio turns to him and grins. Reni feels his face becoming hot as he looks at the other boy.

“Friendship!” Yukio takes one of his hands and raises it up. “Just like the two of us! Exactly like the two of us!”

“Of course.” Reni smiles at Yukio yet for some reason he can’t quite bring his entire being to it the same way the other boy can. “Exactly like the two of us.”

Yukio smiles at him and they walk to the classroom hand in hand. Reni unhands himself right before they enter the classroom making an excuse on how it’s embarrassing to be seen holding hands by other people.

The alstroemeria looks like it’s almost wilting when they get back.

(Later, when Yukio is too busy and not looking, Reni looks up the meaning of alstroemeria in the same book of flowers. He traces the word devotion with his finger over and over again and thinks that this is exactly the two of them.)

* * *

Kamikizaka Reni is eighteen years old when he is thrown out of his home for refusing to follow the blueprint that is called his life. His parents are not that evil to leave him to fend off the world with the clothes off his back. He leaves his home for the final time trucking along a luggage and a pocketful of money without anywhere to go.

So he goes to the only man he knows will take him in.

It is three am, the night is chilly and Reni is outside Tachibana Yukio’s house. After a few minutes, Reni wants to give up and look for a cheap hotel to stay in for the night as he assesses his future actions but then he hears a stumble from the inside of the apartment. The door opens and he sees Yukio looking like he just woke up.

“Reni?” Yukio yawns, “Is that you? Jesus Christ, it’s three am!”   
Reni had a big speech he practiced the entire time he walked from his (ex) home to here. He had a plan in order to prevent the other man from worrying too much when he finds out what happened. Sure, it involved a tiny bit of deceit, a tiny bit of lies but he was still going to do it. The moment he sees Yukio, all those words he planned inside his head were all but thrown out.

“I got kicked out.” Is all he says instead. Honesty tumbles out of him whenever he is in the near vicinity of Yukio as if he’s infected by the same steadfast honest virus the other man has within him.

“For real?” Yukio wakes up immediately and ushers him in. “Just get in.”

It is a small one-room apartment, one that Reni helped the other move in just a month ago but it is lived in. The living room isn’t that big of a mess but the comforter his bed had was strewn all across the floor. On the walls were photos from their highschool days that Reni can’t help but linger on.

“Your parents really did that? They really kicked you out?” Yukio asks as he opens the lights. He goes to his closet and takes out a spare futon, already preparing where Reni is to stay. “What did  _ you _ even do? You’re like the perfect child, my mom wants  _ me _ to be  _ you _ .”

“Well,” Reni feels some level of uncomfort rising within his chest. He’s not sure if it’s because he feels out of place in this small apartment or if it’s because he does not know if he should tell the truth to the other.

“Well?” Yukio looks up at him expectantly, taking a pause from setting out the futon.

“I told them I wanted to do theater.” Reni admits. He is a fool if he thinks he can lie just like that to the other. “I don’t want to become a salaryman.”

Yukio looks at him with those marigold eyes, practically beaming, and Reni feels a weight be taken off from his shoulders. The other man abandons the comforter and walks all the way to him. He is short, a good head shorter than Reni, but he can’t take off his eyes as he looks at him with eyes that shine like he hung the moon.

“This calls for a celebration then!” Yukio exclaims ecstatically, grabbing Reni’s hands and dragging him to the small table the apartment has. “Sit down! Sit down!”

Reni does so, albeit reluctantly. In the middle of the table, there is a purple flower that he vaguely recognizes but can’t quite place. Yukio grins at him and then walks over to the fridge. He rummages inside before taking out two cans of beer and cold fried chicken. He returns to the table and places it down, taking a seat from across him.

“This was all I had,” Yukio offers the can of beer to Reni who takes it. “But you’re here! About to be an actor!”

“I am an actor.” Reni corrects. 

“An  _ actor that’s about to bloom _ then.” Yukio relents, opening his can of beer. He raises it up to the roof and he looks happy. “To the actor Reni! May the salaryman in you be dead for real this time!”

Reni rolls his eyes, opens his beer and follows suit. “To the actor me.”

They drink slowly until the sun rises up, picking at cold fried chicken. They fall into the bed together, the futon Yukio prepared all but forgotten. Yukio’s eyes are closed but he isn’t sleeping. Reni takes this moment to really take in the other man’s visage. His hair is even longer than it was when they were in high school and his eye bags are deep as if he has not been sleeping well the past few nights. In the end this is still the Yukio that Reni loves.

“Reni,” Yukio murmurs, his voice drowsy with sleep. “I’m glad you’re here.”

_ Where else would I go? _ Reni doesn’t ask but thinks,  _ where else would I go when you have dug yourself so deep inside my heart that I cannot seem to uproot you? _

Yukio’s breathing evens out and Reni thinks that getting kicked out wasn’t that bad if he has friends like this. Soon, his eyes become heavy and he loses himself in deep slumber. Before so, he finally places the name on the flower that was on the table. A stock.

* * *

Kamikizaka Reni is twenty-two years old when he meets Yukio’s wife. She is with a baby as evident by her swelling belly. Yukio looks at her as if she has hung the moon and planted all the flowers on earth.

He holds a bouquet of yellow tulips in his hand. He offers it to the couple with the best smile he can muster. This is the most crucial role that Reni is undertaking, much more crucial than any other role he has taken under Mankai. He has to sell this because if he can’t then he risks the past years of their friendship. He has to sell this because if he cannot then what kind of actor is he?

“To the happy couple.” Reni says, his voice light and happy while he feels his heart cracking. “To your everlasting happiness.”

The wife takes the flowers in her arms and smiles at him courteously. The worst thing about it is that she also looks at Yukio like he is the water that flows around them, that he is the star that illuminates all. She is braver than him, taking her chances to play the game. The worst thing about it is that Reni never stood a chance if he never wanted to play the game at all.

Yukio embraces him tight.

“Thank you,” Yukio whispers as he does so. Reni does not know why he is thanking him. “For everything.”

Reni does not reply and instead sinks into the hug and takes in what he can as if he is a dying man.

* * *

Kamikizaka Reni is twenty-five years old and already a man when Yukio disappears. His wife calls him, frantically asking if he has seen the man. Reni answers truthfully. He hasn’t seen Yukio since a month ago. It’s not like he can even see much of him anymore considering the both of them have moved out from their shared apartment together.

Another week passes by and there is still no sign of the man. Police are starting to consider the fact that Yukio is a runaway dad. He’s young, barely twenty-six, and already with a family to support. The wife doesn’t believe it. 

Reni also doesn’t believe it. He’s seen how the man looks at his family as if they’re the only good left in this rotten world. Yukio isn’t the type of person to just up and go like that.

But it is a comforting story. A story about a man who did not love his family enough to stay. A story that comforts the broken pieces of his heart and soon he deludes himself into thinking that it’s what happened.

Reni looks at a photo of Yukio. It’s one of the photos they took during high school. He’s smiling straight at the camera and he looks like he’s ready to take the world by the storm. He commands attention in a way that Reni has never seen before in any other person.

There is, of course, another explanation.

Yukio could be dead. Rotting in some cliff out there and isn’t that a thought right there? When has he hated Yukio so much that he feels a bit of comfort at the thought that the man is dead? This is the same man that willingly opened his door for him in his trying times, the man that has introduced him to the world of acting, flowers and  _ theater _ and Reni wants nothing more than for him to be dead.

He has a shelf of pictures of their time together in his apartment. It dates from their high school years, to trying to find jobs to support each other and finally to the beginning of Mankai. Besides the only solo photo of Yukio he owns is a glass vase containing a zinnia. He replaces it with a different flower each week almost religiously, it just so happens that this week is a zinnia.

_ Oh Yukio. _ Reni thinks as he looks at the photo of Yukio.  _ Where did you go? Where are you? _

(His traitorous brain and heart adds:  _ Why did you not take me with you? _ )

* * *

Kamikizaka Reni is twenty-seven years old and he is acutely aware that life goes on. It has been two years since Yukio disappeared and left Mankai to ruin. One by one, all of the actors that he has amassed started leaving. Without Yukio, there is no Mankai.

That’s an idiotic way of looking at Mankai, Reni thinks and he feels something firey rise up within his inside. Mankai wasn’t  _ just _ Yukio. Mankai was springsummerautumnwinter _ all _ of them.

However, he and Yukio did not see eye to eye on  _ certain _ things, especially how the man decided to run Mankai. The troupe might have been Reni’s start but that didn’t mean it would be  _ his _ end. He abandoned so many things, the future he should’ve had, that he won’t throw this away even if Yukio is dead!

( _ This is all he had. _

Of what? Of Yukio?

He didn’t know.)

He leaves Mankai but he does not leave acting the same way the rest of them have. He’s better than all of them. He’s better than Yukio. Theater isn’t a cult of personality but rather the gathering of arrogant people who think they’re better than the rest, a gathering of foxes, of narcissus flowers that knows they’re the best.

Actors are gods in their own right. A dead director can’t kill an actual actor.

* * *

Kamakizaka Reni is thirty years old when he realizes that he hates Tachibana Yukio with a passion. He is thirty years old with his own troupe that are amongst the stars, on the top like a beanstalk and there is nothing that will bring them down. They’ve surpassed Mankai. Reni has  _ surpassed _ Yukio.

Reni would not be the man he is right now if he hadn’t met Yukio and the thought infuriates him in ways that he hadn’t expected. He is on the set of GODza, making final arrangements on where the mountain of orange lilies will go when he realizes that he owes everything he’s ever done in his life to Tachibana Yukio. That man would still be the same even if he hadn’t met Reni and that--

That  _ hurts _ .

But Reni is a professional no matter what anyone says so he carries on, looking at the arrangement for their new play with a keen eye. Every GODza play has to be perfect, has to show off absolutely every inch of power his troupe has. Tasuku, his newest and most promising actor, is behind him watching every word he says.

“Tell me Tasuku,” Reni starts as the set directors finally leave the both of them. He looks at the orange lilies decorating the ceiling of the stage. This kind of extravagance was impossible to achieve with Mankai. “Have you ever had a friend disappear without a trace?”

“No, sir.” Tasuku’s replies are short, stiff and nervous. 

And wasn’t that a lie delivered most genuine, as if he was still trying to convince himself. Tasuku is an actor meant for the stage of GODza.

“I see.” Reni replies, the beginning of the smile on his face. He spares one last look around the set and turns. He pats Tasuku’s broad shoulder and gives a small smile. “I envy you then. Perhaps you’ll never understand the feeling of acting for the sake of surpassing someone who isn’t even looking  _ at you _ .”

Tasuku looks like he has something to say by the way his eyebrows furrow. But Reni leaves the stage and the theater. He walks to his office humming a small tune. He’s moved on. He doesn’t have any photos of Yukio at all. Not in his office, not in his apartment, not in his phone. All photos he has of him were thrown away in a fit of rage and sorrow and alcohol. There is nothing tying him to Mankai and that troupe is just a struggling desperate theater that’ll be lucky enough to survive the year. GODza is here, on the main street of Veludo, attracting thousands of people everyday.

By all accounts and purpose, Reni  _ won. _

(But what use are photos if he knows every inch, every cranny, every surface of Yukio’s face? If he used to spend nights watching him sleep when Reni could not? What use is winning, what use is success if he still hurts for a man who doesn’t exist? Who didn’t bother telling him where he is, how he’s doing.

What use is all of this when Reni is competing with a  _ ghost _ ?)

* * *

Tachibana Yukio was fifteen years old when he first met Kamikizaka Reni. He forced his way inside Reni’s life and stayed there for the next decade before disappearing. Reni was content with the scrap pieces of affection. It wasn’t at all a surprise to hear that Reni’s favorite flower was a scabiosa, a stark contrast to Yukio’s baby breath.

They were friends, promised to be friends forever. They were friends even if Yukio didn’t share Reni’s goal of reaching the top, content with only directing plays he  _ liked _ . They were friends even if Yukio found a wife for himself and left him alone in their apartment for a few months before Reni realized he wasn’t coming back. They were friends even if Reni was absolutely, in the worst kind of pathetic, in love with Yukio and Yukio didn’t know because he didn’t bother to look.

Reni had his life all planned out. He was to study, to get a job, to get a wife, fulfill his filial duty and all that. He threw that all out when Yukio asked because it was  _ him _ who asked.

Now, Kamikizaka Reni is on the cusp of turning forty and what does he have to show for it? Mankai still isn’t dead even if it should be dead. The man he left everything for is missing and no one even knows if they should still look for him. He has no family, no friends, no nothing.

Kamikizaka Reni desperately wishes Tachibana Yukio was here.

* * *

A few days later, Reni finds out that Mankai is about to attempt its final comeback. This is a do or die situation for them. If they don’t gather the audience for it, Mankai will finally die the gruesome death he has been waiting for since he left. There is no one from the old generation who came and went. Matsukawa is the only person left and the director he called in to help the theater go back to its’ former glory is Tachibana Yukio’s only daughter. She’s older than they were when they started Mankai but still far too naive and small for the shoes Yukio has left for her to fill. It is only fitting that it is his daughter who kills Mankai. A fitting ironic end that will surely have Yukio in hysterics.

Reni puts together a bouquet filled with yarrows and thinks about sending it to them. In the end, he does not. He leaves the yarrow in a glass vase filled with water and leaves it on his empty bookshelf.

_ I wonder. Are you proud of her? _ Reni thinks as he seats in his plush velvet chair. In his hand is a cheap can of beer that he never really liked yet still continued to buy.  _ Are you proud of what Mankai has become? _

(If Reni strains his ears he can almost hear him answer back. He doesn’t know if he’s saying yes or no and is far too tired to try and understand the ghost of his past.)

It is not him. Tachibana Izumi is not the same person as her father and that is good. That is better than good, this is the best thing that God has given Reni. Tachibana Izumi is not the same as Tachibana Yukio and they will never be the same. Yukio is buried six feet underground inside Reni’s heart and Izumi is a woman that he does not know nor will he ever know.

It will make watching the destruction of Mankai all the more easier.

**Author's Note:**

> @owoaina on twitter


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